The Voltage at the Receptacle Was Less Than 18V

Common Cause

The most common culprit is a weak or bad cable connection between the receptacle and the battery pack.

The wire from the receptacle to the batteries is often a small gauge wire similar to cheap speaker wire. The end connected to the batteries often frays or corrodes over time, making it difficult to reattach or easily dislodged when replacing batteries or cleaning battery terminals.

How to Confirm

• Set Multimeter: Set your multimeter to DC Voltage at 200VDC
• Read Battery Pack Voltage: Take a reading of the combined battery pack voltage by placing your positive probe on the positive terminal of battery #1 and the negative terminal of the last battery in the series.
  • The voltage needs to be 18V or more for the charger to start a charge cycle
• Read Voltage at the Back of the Receptacle: Take a voltage reading at the back side of your receptacle.
  • If this reading is more than 0.3 Volts different, then you know you have a receptacle cable issue.
    • If the voltage is within 0.3 Volts, move on to the next step
• Read Receptacle Voltage: Take a voltage reading at the front side of your receptacle where you would insert your charger plug.
  • If you are not able to read any voltage at the front side of the receptacle, you likely have a blown fuse inside of your receptacle that will require replacing the receptacle

How To Fix

• Remove Positive and Clean: Remove the positive receptacle wire from the batteries, clean the wire, and twist the end to create a stronger connection point.
• Reattach Positive: Reattach the positive receptacle wire to the battery.
• Repeat for Negative: Repeat cleaning and reconnection for the negative wire
• Retest Voltage: Take another voltage reading at the back of the receptacle to see if you have fixed the problem.
  • If the problem persists, replace the positive and negative wires between the receptacle and the battery pack.

Equipment Used / Where To Buy

• Multimeter